Size matters: The debate over reference desk height

Portal

Volumn 3, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 79-87

  Warnement, Mary ^a  

^a The Boston Athenaeum   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 55449101634     PISSN: 15312542     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/pla.2003.0021     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. See the glossary in Charles C. Soule, How to Plan a Library Building for Library Work (Boston: Boston Book Company, 1912).
2. James Thayer Gerould, The College Library Building: Its Planning and Equipment (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932), 55. In comparison, Gerould provided a fuller discussion of the circulation desk that went beyond its square footage requirements. He acknowledged a debate over the proximity of the circulation desk to the card catalog. See Gerould, 55-58.
3. Ralph A. Beals et al., "The Plan of Service as it Affects the Library Building," in Library Buildings for Library Service, ed. Herman H. Fussler (Chicago: American Library Association, 1947), 20. Incidentally, another chapter addresses the debate mentioned in the above footnote by arguing that card catalogs should be closer to technical services than to reference services.
4. See Robert A. Miller, "The Technical and Administrative Functions of the Library," in Library Buildings for Library Service, ed. Herman H. Fussler (Chicago: American Library Association, 1947), 51. This seems to contradict Beals's chapter that tries to promote reference (guidance) over technical (supply) services. This coincides with differing perspectives (patron versus librarian) that I also noticed in the debate over desk height and will discuss below.
5. Keyes P. Metcalf, Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965).
6. Metcalf, 235-236.
7. Philip D. Leighton and David C. Weber, Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings, 2nd ed. (Chicago: American Library Association, 1986), 235.
8. Leighton and Weber (1986), 235.
9. Ibid.
10. Philip D. Leighton and David C. Weber, Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings, 3rd ed. (Chicago: American Library Association, 2000), 240.
11. Leighton and Weber (2000), 307.
12. William Pierce, Furnishing the Library Interior (New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1980), 60-61.
13. It is noteworthy that this debate appeared in the years before the publication of the second edition of Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings, over twenty years after the original edition.
14. Edward Kazlauskas, "An Exploratory Study: A Kinesic Analysis of Academic Library Public Service Points," Journal of Academic Librarianship 2 (1976): 133. This conclusion was also dependent upon both standing and sitting librarians expressing positive nonverbal behaviors.
15. Kazlauskas, 133.
16. Robert Pierson, "On Reference Desks," Reference & User Services Quarterly 17 (1977): 137.
17. Pierson (1977), 138.
18. Ibid.
19. Linda Morgan, "Patron Preference in Reference Service Points," Reference & User Services Quarterly 19 (1980): 374-375.
20. Morgan, 375.
21. Joyce M. Crooks, "Designing the Perfect Reference Desk," Library Journal 108 (1983): 971.
22. Crooks, 972.
23. Larry Larason and Judith Schiek Robinson, "The Reference Desk: Service Point or Barrier?" Reference & User Services Quarterly 23 (1984): 332-338. Many features besides height of reference desk have an effect upon reference service. They discuss matters that appear in other literature on library buildings such as traffic patterns, signage, line of vision, but they also discuss new aspects such as the influence of gender. For example, women prefer a stranger to approach from the front, whereas men prefer from the side. Both these preferences could be accommodated by designing desks against walls (what they call the "gunfighter's position") where patrons can approach from both sides and front. However, that would not prevent a woman being approached from the side or a man from the front. It is important though to consider these differences and at least attempt to address them.
24. Larason and Robinson, 337.
25. Margaret Becket and Henry Bradford Smith, "Designing a Reference Station for the Information Age," Library Journal 111 (1986): 43.
26. Becket and Smith, 46.
27. Hugh Macdonald, "Designing a Reference Desk," Texas Library Journal 62 (1986): 175. Though published in 1986, renovations actually began in 1980. This article was greatly enhanced by including pictures, instead of just text or rude diagrams, to illustrate the finished reference area.
28. Anne Wood Humphries, "Designing a Functional Reference Desk: Planning to Completion," Reference & User Services Quarterly 33 (1993): 35-36.
29. Humphries, 37.
30. Ibid., 35.
31. Robert M. Pierson, "Appropriate Settings for Reference Service," Reference Services Review 13 (1985): 19.
32. Pierson (1985), 19, 29.
33. Ibid., 20.
34. Lisa R. Bartle, "Designing an Active Academic Reference Service Point," Reference & User Services Quarterly 38 (1999): 396-397.
35. Pierson (1977), 138.
36. For early examples of scholarship on evolving reference service models, see Thelma Friedes, "Current Trends in Academic Libraries," Library Trends 31 (1983): 457-474;
37. and Linnea Hendrickson, "Deskless Reference Services," Catholic Library World 55 (1983): 81-84.
38. For a bold declaration of the so-called demise of a physical reference desk (at Brandeis), see Virginia Massey-Burzio, "Reference Encounters of a Different Kind: a Symposium," Journal of Academic Librarianship 18 (1992): 276-286. For a series of articles representing opposing viewpoints and models, see the January 1995 issue (volume 21) of Journal of Academic Librarianship.
39. Scott Carlson, "The Deserted Library: As Students Work Online, Reading Rooms Empty Out - Leading Some Campuses to Add Starbucks," The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 16,2001). Available 〈http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i12/12a03501.htm〉 [October 30,2002].
40. Marie Radford, "Approach or avoidance? The role of nonverbal communication in the academic library user's decision to initiate a reference encounter," Library Trends 46, no. 4 (Spring 1998): 699-717. Available to licensed users in Gale Group InfotracWeb Expanded Academic ASAP [October 30, 2002].
41. Marie Radford, The Reference Encounter: Interpersonal Communication in the Academic Library (Chicago: ACRL, 1999), 68.
42. John V. Richardson Jr., "Reference is Better Than We Thought," Library Journal 127 (2002): 42;
43. and "Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Services Professionals," Reference & User Services Quarterly 36 (1996): 200-203.
44. There were sixty reference areas pictured with counters and fifty-five with desks. See Michael J. Crosbie and Damon D. Hickey, When Change is Set in Stone: An Analysis of Seven Academic Libraries Designed by Perry Dean Rogers and Partners, Architects (Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2001).